Local News Roundup: Slightly Ranty Edition
Comments(0) It’s time for more news from the arse end of the world!
First off, a big fuck you Australia! Turns out they’re just a bunch of uptight pricks after all.
Basically, our local distributors rely on Australian distribution channels and ended up with the censored Australian version of GTAIV which was rated R18 (i.e restricted to people 18 and over). However, the uncensored version was recently submitted to the Office of Film and Literature Classification, and passed with the same R18 rating. Unfortunately our lazy major retailers will no doubt keep importing from Australia, but it means you won’t be arrested for importing it from the States or UK, or paying someone else to import it. After all, it doesn’t make sense banning the uncensored version on the basis of prostitution scenes in a country where you can legally go out and get a prostitute at that age.
Madman AU being bought out again? After being bought out by Australian toy company Funtastic, it turns out Funtastic has been going down the shitter ever since. Buying another company only tangentially related to your main business might not be such a good idea after all! I should have guessed something was up when they lost the bidding war for Evangelion 1.0. But yes, right when Funtastic were considering setting Madman adrift again, the Archer consortium is trying to buy Funtastic out.
Certainly the Funtastic takeover seemed like a bit of a shambles from the New Zealand consumer perspective – Funtastic bought out Planet Fun, a local toy distributor and transferred control of Madman NZ to them while they were at it, whereas previously it was operated by Gamewizz Digital Entertainment (which had its own problems, but we should probably let bygones be bygones). While we only really see our monopolistic distributors at the Armageddon conventions, the changeover was immediately obvious with a rather glaring and disappointing change in policy (spearheaded by the folk of Madman AU) – that of DVD convention pricing being little different from RRP, which led to some rather annoyed customers.
From what I understand, Madman NZ distribution and so on is controlled as a smaller piece of the larger Funtastic machinery in operation here – which puts Urotsukidoji right next to the High School Musical game, and of magnitudes less importance. It doesn’t help that Gamesplus (a local gaming chain and anime retailer) closed down last year, leaving far fewer retail stores stocking anime DVDs and generally fucking over their plan of getting their DVDs into the Sounds music stores run by the same folks. Not all the business set-backs are their fault. But at the same time, the word from their existing retailers seems to be that things are still a mess on their DVD distribution front – do they even have a dedicated manager for the DVD part of their NZ business? It doesn’t seem so, given they still have Sylvester Ip from the Australian arm of the business coming over to manage con events. Like I said, a mess.
If you live in Auckland, you might want to try JB Hi-Fi instead – I’m under the impression they get their stock direct from Australia (like EB Games used to until they stopped distributing DVDs altogether). Last I saw they had plenty of Death Note Limited Edition Vol 1 and 2 boxes, which Madman NZ has apparently long run out of. Of if you aren’t already, consider importing. It really makes more sense, particular given our whole DVD region free thing.
About the only good thing Planet Fun have achieved is managing to get the Madman DVDs into The Warehouse chain, which is effectively the largest DVD retailer in the country, from memory. Yet their business still appears haphazard and ill-managed, with the New Zealand fan ultimately losing out. So will this buyout improve things? Somehow I doubt it – Madman NZ is now a small part of Madman Australia, which in turn is a small part of Funtastic, which is in the process of being swallowed by a progressively larger whale. Doesn’t seem good. And they still need to make the shift over to Blu-ray.
Sorry, this turned a bit ranty. Hmm.
Also, because there’s always so little local news, there’s this: Warhammer Online worldwide simultaneous release actually including us, with a dedicated server even. I was rather excited about this bit of local news until I realised that I honestly couldn’t give a shit about Warhammer.
Via Stuff.co.nz, Anime News Network (ugh, I need a better source) and Kotaku
